Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

He entered the Hall in only its third year of inductions, in a class that also included the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Drifters and the Supremes. Springsteen's speech became one of the best remembered in the institution's history. He described first hearing Dylan on the radio as a teenager and how it changed his sense of what a rock record could say, and he credited Dylan with freeing the minds of a generation of songwriters. Dylan's own remarks were brief and wry. The honor arrived at an odd point in his career, after a run of records that had drawn mixed reviews. Within months he would start the touring that defined his later decades and join the Traveling Wilburys, and the following year Oh Mercy would restore much of his critical standing.